With the recent announcement of Hollow Knight: Silksong as a "DLC-turned-full-sequel," does anyone else think it's possible that Playtonic might be doing the same with a potential Tooka-Laylee? From the Developer Commentary videos, they all seem very cognizant and forward about the shortcomings of Yooka-Laylee, so that makes me wonder: If the DLC planned for Y-L is a new world, would it seem strange to have a new, perfectly-polished world addressing some of the common issues (Kartos, Rextro, Flappy Flight, etc.) alongside the other worlds in the original game, or is it possible that any DLC will just be moved to a second, more realized and coherent game? Knowing Playtonic, this would be discounted for Kickstarter Backers in some way. The reception to Silksong seems overwhelmingly positive, and I would be ecstatic if Playtonic were to announce that Tooka-Laylee is the next big thing after the release of the 64-bit tonic. Assuming they use Unity for a sequel, I think their 64-bit methodology could even be applied to a future game.

I think this is very unlikely. We know Playtonic is working on a second game, which might be sequel to Yooka-Laylee, but the DLC is definitely separate to that project.

The upcoming DLC is going to be free to all backers. It would be a disaster for a business to spend 2+ years on a full game just to give it away for free to their primary audience. On the simple fact that it would make no marketable sense at all, I can say pretty confidently that the DLC will not be very expansive -- and definitely not a whole new game.

Edit: Although, just as I posted this, I thought that the possibility of them releasing some sort of demo of their next game via the DLC is maybe possible -- but still a stretch. It would actually save them time because they'd just be using assets from the upcoming title they've been working on, instead of working on assets for both a new game and a DLC simultaneously.

E.g. if they're working on a Yooka-Laylee Kart Racer, you could use all those assets to put some sort of racing "mini-game" into Yooka-Laylee.

But I still think the most likely outcome is a pretty basic DLC, maybe something to do with the Pirate Treasure.

Yes, of course what I said only makes any sense if the next game is a sequel to Yooka-Laylee. It might not be the best assumption, but I do think that's at least one of the games they're working on. (At least, I selfishly hope so!)

Regardless of the next games, DLC, etc., I think my overall point is that the Kickstarter goals can/should be a bit less rigid than some fans might like, provided the reason for not meeting them is good enough. In the case of Silksong, I don't think anyone minds that it's not the DLC they expected or that they don't have a release date, since the actual product appears good to enough to make those questions not matter that much. In this context, this could look like discounting the DLC-quel instead of giving it to Backers entirely for free. I for one would be happy with a small discount on a future game if it built on the foundation set by Y-L.

Theorizing about this would certainly be a bit easier if we had any idea how the team is currently delegating things. As far as I've read, we know the team has grown since Y-L, but also that there are separate teams working on different things at the moment. I think it would be weird to have a team potentially even smaller than the original Y-L team working on DLC while another team might be working on a proper Y-L sequel, and yet another may be working on Yooka-Laylee Kart Racing or something. If they split things up too much just to be working on more things I worry the quality of each one would suffer, as well as each one taking more time to complete. My point on this is that I hope that they are making the game they feel needs to be made, rather than half-heartedly fulfilling a Kickstarter promise from 4 years ago.

At this point, I'd personally rather them skip Y-L DLC and just incorporate any future ideas they have for the series in a sequel comparable to how Banjo-Tooie built on Banjo-Kazooie. It might be a bit narrow-minded, but I think the only DLC that really makes sense for Y-L is something like an extra world or purely cosmetic things like the 64-bit tonic, maybe some costumes like Mario Odyssey, cheat codes, etc. I think anything beyond that involving new moves or bigger design changes would look strange when tacked on to the original game, could even affect how the original game plays, and would be better suited for a sequel.